


Top of the Deck

by BlueDarknessIceHeart



Series: Fire Starter//Ash Covered [7]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Injury, Two MC's, memory recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 11:58:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14378175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueDarknessIceHeart/pseuds/BlueDarknessIceHeart
Summary: It all seems to start with a sudden offer from the countess and a swing of a bottle that feels all too familiar.A magician to solve the murder.A witch to stumble back into her old home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This mentions "memories" of things (on Alia's side) that have been detailed in previous parts of the series if anyone is curious!

Rey was still discussing Nadia's proposition outside when she heard the voice. 

"Strange hours for a shop to keep."

Alia's hand was already reaching for one of the empty glass bottles behind her, the rambling of the shadowed figure giving her time. 

The blow was well aimed, mask sent flying and the crack of glass against skin echoing in the empty shop. 

"Oh, you _do_ have guts." 

He wipes at the blood on his brow, and Alia simply stares - dark grey eyes focused on a familiar face and mind running across why the swing of a bottle felt so familiar in her hand.

"Doctor Devorak?" 

"The one and only."

The shop door swung open and Rey froze, the door clicking shut behind her. 

_"Jules?"_

\--

Slamming into a stranger in the crowded marketplace was less than ideal, let alone sending their fruit tumbling. 

Rey scrambled to help while Alia picked up nearby pomegranets, carrying a gentle conversation with the red headed girl - Portia, she'd learn. 

Rey carefully plucked the fruit from Alia's hand. 

"You okay there, or did you manage to hit your head?" it sounded like a joke, but the concern laced in the taller magician's words was clear to the witch. 

"I'm - I'm fine, yes. I just - strangely remembered someone I was close to had a particular favoring of pomegranates."

\-- 

They recognized eachother, of course. 

It was one of the few things Alia knew about herself: she was why Countess Nadia _was_ even if she didn't truly know the details behind it. 

And Countess Nadia recognized her dead husband's true lover, the one he'd let guide his vain attempt at running Vesuvia through his hands. 

The Count's loyal witch, a figure of fame in name only: speculated to have died with him in the blaze, but here she stood in the palace once again unsettled to her core as to why it felt like home. 

\--

Rey didn't like the dogs - she loved dogs in general, but something about the pale things on the stairs unnerved her. 

Alia, however, was seemingly entranced; her hand out as the two canines pressed into her sides. 

Portia would have missed it if she hadn't been standing so close, the soft near-whisper of "Mercedes? Melchior?" that came from the witch. 

Her voice sounded broken, for someone who put off an air that seemed to bristle even Nadia. 

Rey watched Alia crouch down, and the two alabaster dogs set about licking her face. 

"Well, I've definitely never seen that before. You're sure you didn't cast a spell on them?" 

"I'm," Alia coughed, clearing the tightness of her throat; unsure of why she felt like she was on the verge of tears, "I'm sure I didn't, Portia." 

\--

She'd taken to roaming the halls at night, not quite caring who saw or what was said. 

It felt too familiar, even if it dragged the pain in her skull from dull to all too sharp when she stumbled too close to an actually clear memory - she felt like she finally belonged somewhere.

Alia had, at first, thought she was losing what little sanity she felt she had. 

Voices, tiny flashes of memories that managed to seep through the pain as she wandered. 

Mercenary days, the familiar swing of a bottle in her hand as she cracked it on a table and laughter that sent her heart pounding. 

Her own voice, laced with a rage she hadn't felt in years: "Swallow the wine, girl." 

Her life before Vesuvia had enough holes in it, but the missing years - that was a whole other story. 

Alia rested on the railing of the veranda, looking out over the garden. 

Her sigh was heavy, hand coming up to run across her face. 

"I remember, yet I don't. How can I remember running and running and then finding someone and then _nothing?_ "

The night sky gave her no answers.


	2. Chapter 2

"Asra is not _my_ master." she speaks of him with the same venom she speaks of Rey in, when the woman is not around. 

She's started to remember - this palace that used to be partly hers. She was not someone meant to be filling in the large gaps of her memory under the pretense of solving Lucio's murder with a magician she couldn't stand. 

Following Mercedes and Melchior, tripping into Lucio's ash covered room, choking on her fear and her pain and her grief. 

It was all clicking together, returned her to her former glory of gold and crimson and _cruel_ when necessary. 

"I needed no master before Lucio's death and I have no need for one now, Nadia, so Asra will remain Rey's master and someone who I have some vague tie to." 

Nadia blinked at her from across the table, servants going still. 

The smile caught her off guard. 

"It's refreshing to see you returned to form, Alia." 

"I'm not entirely there yet. I'd like to discuss it with you further, if you wouldn't mind." 

\--

Talking about it in private was supposed to help. 

Nadia's memory was missing gaps as large as hers had been - and Alia could only try and walk her through little pieces. 

"So you remember me, and my relationship with Lucio predated him even becoming Count." 

"Yes."

"And that it was my pushing that brought about his... very pitiful excuse of a proposal."

"Yes, I remember all of that, in some fashion, at least." 

It was quiet, for a time, Alia staring down at the metal that covered her nails. 

"I'm the one that nearly took Rey's eye. You weren't there for it. Julian Devorak patched her right up on the hallway floor outside of Lucio's bedroom."

Nadia stared at her as she laughed, the bitter noise that it was barely passing. 

"I don't think he did it, you know. I know that throws one hell of a wrench in your plans, Nadia, but if I'm the remnants of cruelty in the House of Vesuvia then whoever took Lucio from me will be the right person - and they won't die easily by some simple _gallows hanging._ That's no spectacle, Noddy." her almost pained grin had pulled her dark red lips back to bare her teeth, as if she could see her lovers murderer under her boot heel, begging for mercy right that moment. 

Nadia wouldn't be surprised if she was imagining it - Alia was more well versed in having a conscience than Lucio had been, but she made up for her morality with cruelty enough to match her lovers all the same. 

"What would you have me do, Alia, set them ablaze for the public to witness just as Lucio did to those that happened to anger him on the wrong day?" the Countess was worn down, Alia could hear it, but the emptiness in her chest wouldn't fade until blood had been repaid. 

"If you feel uncomfortable, let the dead Count's loyal witch do it. If anything it'd be a nice reinstatement, I didn't die, I was just stolen." 

"What do you-" 

"I mean that everyone thinks I died with him - with Lucio, like I should have, if I'm quite honest - but here I am. Whisked away by someone, kept away from all familiarity and unable to grieve because I couldn't _remember_ \- stolen, Nadia. Stolen away and I'll never get that back." 

Alia swiped at her tears with the palm of her hand, and Nadia placed a hand on her knee. 

"You... you truly loved him, didn't you - despite everything?" 

Alia's small hiccup as she tried to breathe made her shudder under Nadia's hand. 

"Yeah, yeah I did. I do, hell, Nadia every time I remember something good it's always him and it feels like someone is ripping out my heart."

The witch let the Countess quietly summon Portia, sending away for tea. 

It was quiet, outside of Alia's hiccupping. 

"Why...why did you push for a marriage?" 

Alia shot Nadia a small smile, running her less decorated hand through her hair. 

"Lucio didn't like it either. Hated the idea, actually. One of the more brutal fights, two explosives in a small space - well." 

She paused, tapping her fingers on her leg for a moment. 

"The new Count of Vesuvia comes into power - he's good at brutality, the killing. He wants whatever he wants and he wants it then and he hates the decorum and the restrictions and he's not exactly great at politics. He takes the title with a witch at his side, nonetheless, and it unsettles people at best - did he get the title fairly, did she swing things in his favour, how do we know this, or that?" she can see Nadia's eyes brightening with every bit of information, even if the retelling feels like scraping a knife over her bones. 

"It wasn't easy. Lucio is stubborn, if anyone else had suggested it it wouldn't have happened. That's why he was completely wasted, he didn't want to do it - but he needed the political aspect of power and you fit the bill. And I'm sorry I made you put up with him - wasn't fond of sharing the spotlight."

"It's... it's fine, Alia." 

"No, not really. It was smart, at the time, but you should've... you should've left. You could have, you should've put yourself first. I think I- I made you stay, somehow. I think I was scared, it's still a little hazy - but it's my fault. A lot of things were, in a way." she fidgeted with the onyx claws on her right hand as she spoke, gently sliding them off. 

"I won't argue with you, you're as stubborn as Lucio was - and I don't quite feel up to the fight. Ah, Portia, thank you."

Alia hadn't thought she'd ever be quite so grateful for tea instead of wine. 

\--

Alia waited outside the doors, she had always _detested_ the courtiers.

She assumed the feeling was mutual, with the way Lucio nearly broke glasses in hand after meetings and snapped at snide comments made at her expense. 

"Or perhaps the _witch_ might tell us herself?" 

Alia swept into the room in exactly the fashion Lucio did - attention snapping to her and Rey, already on edge, bristling further. 

"Perhaps, Valerius, you should watch your tone before the real witch does something - or are you going to play nice?" she kept her tone light, a _jest_ if one didn't know better, but they all knew exactly what hid behind the sweet lilt of a voice. 

Nadia kept playing a pleasant tune, even as the courtiers stared the assumed-dead witch down. 

"Alia, how-" 

"You all should really learn how to check for bodies better. A kidnapping is not a death." 

Alia settled across from Rey, heads turning to follow her movement. 

She watched as they took in her appearance, as if she'd never left the palace - the same jewelry, her original dress, the same trappings of someone that Lucio held in high regard to match them to himself. 

"Now, if you'd like to ask questions like intelligent human beings, you can go on." 

Alia's eyes were on the courtiers the entire time, the shock of her reappearance throwing them into behaving - at least for a time. 

She knew Valerius' pettiness when she saw it, the further he moved towards Rey the more obvious it was. 

"Valerius, old friend, if you so much as waste a drop of wine on being a petulant child I'll deprive you of it the entire time you're here." 

The recoil was fast enough to make joints crack. 

"You don't have the power-" 

"Try me, please, I'm still a name tied to Lucio's - I've done enough to be able to have the servants never pour you a glass so long as you breathe." 

It was the one favour she'd do the magician.


End file.
